ANOTHER WHEELCHAIR USER IS DEAD. How many more lives before safe wheelchair transport becomes the law?

Key Facts:

• A wheelchair user in Western Australia died after sustaining fatal head injuries when their wheelchair tipped backwards during vehicle exit, with WorkSafe WA identifying a lack of driver training and failure to follow correct operating procedures as contributing factors.
• The incident follows the June 2026 conviction of Echuca Moama Taxi Group in Victoria, which was fined $133,128 after two passengers died in 2021 when their wheelchairs tipped over in the company’s taxis due to inadequate driver training in wheelchair securement.
• Physical Disability Australia (PDA) argues that both deaths were preventable, stating that a simple wheelchair winch combined with correct use of tie-downs and restraint systems could have saved lives, but these safeguards remain optional rather than legally required across much of Australia.
• PDA is calling on Commonwealth, state, and territory governments to introduce nationally consistent legislation mandating compulsory wheelchair winches and restraint systems in all accessible vehicles, national driver accreditation with regular refresher training, and independent enforcement and auditing.
• PDA will write to the Prime Minister and all state and territory transport ministers, urging them to transform existing lessons from coronial findings and court judgements into enforceable national law, ensuring wheelchair users receive equal protection regardless of which state they live in.

A wheelchair user has died getting out of a taxi, and it was preventable.

Physical Disability Australia (PDA) is demanding that every government act now to make wheelchair safety in accessible vehicles a national law, after WorkSafe Western Australia confirmed another death. “People with disability are still being left to rely on luck, not legal protection, every time they get into a taxi. When something as simple as a winch could have prevented this fatality, anything less just isn’t good enough” says PDA CEO Suzanne Gearing.

In Significant Incident Summary No. 16, published on 2 November 2026, WorkSafe WA reported that a wheelchair user was fatally injured while exiting a vehicle provided for on-demand passenger transport. The driver moved the passenger’s wheelchair backwards towards the rear of the vehicle while the lift platform was at ground level instead of level with the vehicle floor. The wheelchair tipped backwards and the passenger fell to the ground, sustaining fatal head injuries.

A preventable death, and a system that keeps failing

WorkSafe WA identified three contributing factors: the driver had last been trained 14 years before the incident and had never received refresher training; the method used did not match the driver’s training or the manufacturer’s operator manual; and the operator did not require its workers to complete the relevant national training unit of competency.

“A person has died because the safety of wheelchair users depends on an operator choosing to train its drivers, rather than on a law that requires it,” said Suzanne Gearing CEO of Physical Disability Australia. “Nobody should lose their life getting in or out of a taxi. Yet the basic protections that keep us safe are still optional in much of this country.”

A simple winch can save lives

The answer is not complicated. A wheelchair winch, the tie-down and occupant restraint system that locks a wheelchair and its passenger firmly to the vehicle, is a simple, proven safeguard. When it is fitted, used correctly and every time, a wheelchair cannot roll, shift or tip over backwards.

In Victoria, WorkSafe told the court that the danger to passengers arose when drivers did not properly secure wheelchairs with the restraint system. Having the equipment is not enough. It has to be compulsory, correctly used, and checked. Right now, in much of Australia, whether a wheelchair user is safely secured depends on the habits and training of one driver on one day.

A simple winch, correct use and a refresher course should never be the difference between getting home and losing a life.

We have been here before

This is not an isolated tragedy. It is the latest in a pattern that Australia’s regulators and operators have been warned about repeatedly:

• Echuca Moama Taxi Group, Victoria: In June 2026, the company was convicted and fined $133,128 in the Melbourne County Court after pleading guilty to failing to ensure passengers were not exposed to health and safety risks. Two passengers died after their wheelchairs tipped over in the company’s taxis, a 63-year-old woman in February 2021 and 75-year-old John Phyland in June 2021, who suffered a fractured sternum on the way home from dialysis and died a week later.
• The court heard it was reasonably practicable for the company to introduce ongoing refresher training and competency assessments for drivers on securing wheelchair passengers. WorkSafe Victoria’s Chief Health and Safety Officer said it is “not enough for duty holders to have the right safety equipment installed, they must also do everything they can to ensure workers are trained and competent in how to use the system correctly.”
• Western Australia, 2026: The same root cause, drivers who were not trained, refreshed or supervised, has now cost another life.

Different states, different operators, the same failure. Every investigation points back to training, procedure and equipment use that were left to individual operators, and every time the lesson is recorded and then not acted upon. Guidance and prosecutions after the fact do not bring anyone back.

The questions PDA is asking

• Why is a simple wheelchair winch, together with the correct use of tie-downs, restraints and lifts, not compulsory, enforced and audited in every accessible vehicle in Australia?
• Why is the national training unit for wheelchair accessible taxi services (TLIC0026) something operators can choose to ignore?
• Why do wheelchair users in one state face different protections from those in another?
• How many more people must die before the lessons from Victoria and Western Australia become law?

What PDA is calling for

PDA is calling on the Commonwealth, state and territory governments, through the National Cabinet and transport and infrastructure ministers, to introduce nationally legislated, uniform laws that:

1. Make the wheelchair winch compulsory, so every wheelchair accessible vehicle used for passenger transport must be fitted with a compliant winch, tie-down and occupant restraint system, and every wheelchair passenger must be properly secured before the vehicle moves.
2. Require national accreditation of every driver and operator, including completion of the relevant national unit of competency, with compulsory refresher training and competency re-assessment at regular intervals.
3. Mandate safe operating procedures and inspection of lifts, ramps and restraints, with regular maintenance and supervision.
4. Establish independent national enforcement, auditing and public reporting of incidents involving wheelchair passengers.
5. Involve people with physical disability in designing, testing and monitoring these standards, in line with “nothing about us without us”.

“Safe transport is not a luxury, and it is not an optional extra. It is a basic right under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Disability Discrimination Act,” said Ms Gearing. “We are not asking for something new. We are asking governments to turn the lessons already written in coroners’ findings and court judgments into national law, before another family is left grieving.”

PDA will be writing to the Prime Minister and all state and territory transport ministers this week, and invites them to meet with Physical Disability Australia andleaders in workplace health and safety to develop enforceable, nationally consistent solutions: a single mandatory standard for wheelchair securement, compulsory driver training and refresher competency checks, and independent auditing and penalties that apply to every operator in every state and territory, so that no wheelchair user is left at risk because of where they live or which taxi they happen to catch.

Sources

• WorkSafe WA, Significant Incident Summary No. 16: Fatal incident during operation of vehicle wheelchair lift (2 November 2026)
• WorkSafe Victoria, Taxi company fined for risk to wheelchair users (26 June 2026)
• ABC News, Echuca Moama Taxi Group sentenced (26 June 2026)
• Your Life Choices, Court hears Victorian taxi operator reflect on tragic wheelchair deaths

About us:

Physical Disability Australia (PDA) is a national organisation representing people with physical disability, advocating for rights, access and inclusion across Australia.